Wrong Implication In Term ‘Faith Healing'

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30562, 3 October 1964, Page 26

Wrong Implication In Term ‘Faith Healing'

The term “faith healing” had been abandoned by Christian healers because it was open to misrepresentation, the Bev. E. Winckley said in Christchurch. Mr Winckley, who is the founder of four Healing Homes in South Africa, has been tn New Zealand a month, conducting preaching and healing missions. Faith healing suggested that if a person failed to be healed through the laying-on-of-hands, his faith in Christ was not great enough, but this was not necessarily so, Mr Winckley said. The cause could be one of many. It might not be the sick person’s lack of faith but a lack on the part of his family, doctor or church for instance. The healing ministry of the

church worked through divine love and not through human faith, he said. The ministry believed in “the nature of man as curable and the nature of God as one who wills to make us whole.” Although the power of suggestion, or “mind over matter” could contribute in some cases to a sick person’s recovery this was not at all the main aspect of divine healing which depended on the “invasion” of the sufferer’s body by divine strength. The ability to heal was not a gift peculiar to some people, but available for any Christian with a great enough belief, Mr Winckley said. Some people were born with a magnetic quality in their hands which had healing powers, but this was something quite apart from divine healing, not being connected with a spiritual belief. Divine healing could play a great part in providing preventative as well as curative measures in illness, he said. For young people it could mean a life of better health and greater happiness. He did not see a major resurgence of faith in divine healing to the extent that it would effect the normal hospital activities—“but I wish I could.” Doctors, he said, were beginning to agree about the need for spiritual healing as a means of lessening the medical burden. Mr Winckley’s visit is part of a tour that has taken him to 120 cities in England, Canada, America and New Zealand. During that time he has conducted 25,000 laying on of hands. Missions he conducted in Auckland, Gisborne, Wellington and New Plymouth and Hamilton were each attended by more than 1000 people. . Last evening in Christchurch he conducted a prayer service at St. John’s Church, Latimer square, and his opening mission service will be held on Sunday evening. On Monday and Tuesday he will conduct morning healing services at 10 a.m., and mission services at 7.30 p.m. at St. John’s. All services are interdenominational.